Dubai is a newer city and therefore does not have a great deal of substance. For Westerners the dress code is annoying and restrictive and people don’t like to be annoyed while on holidays. Women have to cover up their shoulders and legs; some women choose not to out of rebellion or ignorance, who knows? There were some really hot days and I would have loved to have worn an outfit of my choice but I was respectful of the dress code rules. This is an overly expensive city and I would not choose to come back to Dubai on this basis alone. The traffic is already deplorable for a ‘master-planned city’. Last night it took us over one hour to go to a place that is supposed to take 20 minutes and that was to the Dubai Outlet Malls which had more reasonable prices but still not outlet prices as North Americans know them as. The dust was bad for 3 of our 7 days here in Dubai. Personally we are glad that we came here to see Dubai but we would not return; been there done that. But someone must like this city because I have never seen such a monumental effort of construction in my entire life. Never have I seen this amount of building cranes and construction sites and road expansions. Whole huge blocks are dedicated to constructing 20 or more apartment buildings at one go. Massive homes being created that make large homes in Saskatoon look tiny. My mouth was drooling over some of these mansions under construction and the multitude of the ones that are already built. Dubai demands a whole new meaning to 'new builds'. With this magnitude of building and construction sites ongoing, Dubai will double in size in no time at all. I guess, if I was an extremely wealthy Arab woman who wanted a beach house then Dubai would definitely be the place to build or buy.

Darren Cannelldcannell@darrencannell.comleavingdubaiunitedarabemirates1https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/40742278597259149232010-10-20T05:43:53.873Z2016-09-01T21:58:05.193Z2010-10-27T14:03:02.094ZBudapest - the Pest side

I picked Budapest as one of our cities on this World tour because I had read about the many ancient thermal bath houses that dated back to the Turks and the Romans. All 3 of us love to sit in the spa waters and take them in, they are relaxing and therapeutic. My plan was to go to at least 2 or 3 but our six year old had a bit of a meltdown the one day and we only managed to get to one but we made the most of it. When you are traveling with a small child you can forget that their little legs are half the size and Dax did a lot of miles on his and he was just too tired. So the one day so we just ended up staying in the hotel almost the whole day for him to nap and do school. He was just exhausted from all the walking that we had done in all of the cities. Fortunately we had a nice hotel to relax in and it was the Hilton West End which is connected to a gigantic mall of 400 stores. This normally would have made me ecstatic but I couldn’t buy anything because all of these low cost airlines that we are flying with allow anywhere from 15 to 20 kilos per bag and that can barely hold my skincare products, it takes alot of work to look this good. Ha ha ha. Somehow I am a Hilton VIP and have a card to prove it and we received a delightful upgrade to a one bedroom suite for free. This was a welcome contrast to the teeny tiny room in Prague.

I must say that spending the week in the USA was a little bit of heaven. Having all of the comforts of home, driving on the correct side of the road, no language barriers, a Walmart Supercentre close by and a view to die for, what’s not to like. The mountains were covered in snow in the higher elevations the whole time we were in Palm Desert and we had the most amazing view out our living room window and the two balconies. I could have certainly settled in there for another month. My in-laws were with us almost the whole time and they are a lot of fun so it was a great week. I walked down to the fitness centre at the Marriott every day and jogged and worked out. Dax and I slept in every single day to overcome the jetlag. Darren sleeps in every day so this was not a stretch. We went shopping once to TJ MAXX and bought myself some shoes to send home with the in-laws. I will do my big shopping trips in Phoenix and New York at the end of our journey when I can handle the extra weight in my bags. We went to a really bad movie called Gnomeo and Juliet and just generally hung out and visited with Mel and Mary. We have been to Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage before so we know the area fairly well and have already done many site seeing things here in the past. You do not know how wonderful it was to sit for one week in a lovely, warm place like Palm Desert and not have a need to go see anything

Palm Desert, California

Today we are flying to Mexico City to overnight and then catch an early flight tomorrow morning to Buenos Aires. We will meet up with my 3 sisters who I have not seen since our Father’s funeral in early November. It is going to be fun!

Darren Cannelldcannell@darrencannell.compalmdesertcaliforniaalittletasteofhome2https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/90005991906187798532011-04-09T21:29:37.603Z2016-09-01T21:58:05.069Z2011-04-10T00:15:07.133ZThe Island of St. Kitt’s

St. Kitt’s is very pretty from the boat just like St. Croix was. The thing we noticed about St. Kitt’s right away is that they have a more aggressive sales pitch. The Crucians (people of St. Croix) did not seem interested enough for us to make a purchase and the St. Kitt’s people were all over us. This tends to turn many people off including us. We are returning for 11 nights to this island this month but we will be flying in and renting a car so it will hopefully be a different scene for us then. The cruise terminal was set up properly for tourism. There was music playing and traditional dance, which gives you a feel for the island. We just wanted to taste the island to give us some idea what the people were like. We did not even leave the extremely large cruise mall terminal area, we did not need to. I personally liked what I saw, lots of hills and mountains and some very lush areas. The buildings were all different colors which gives it a very Caribbean feel. The water was very pretty and blue. St. Kitt’s is not well known for beaches but for other things like hiking and rainforest and they have an old scenic railway that use to carry sugar cane and now it carries tourists. We actually can’t wait to return here in approximately 3 weeks.

We came back onto the boat and did our usual of relaxing and reading. Darren usually picks the louder areas of the boat with live music playing and I tend to stick to the quieter areas of the boat where people lounge and relax close to the spa area. We went to supper and then to a stand up comedian – Fred Klett who was extremely funny and Darren and I laughed our butts off for one hour; he may be the best comedian I have ever seen. We then went to collect our son, who still did not want to come with us, but we forced him too so he could get some sleep.

It was our last full day here on Eleuthera Island and we wanted to make the most of it so we checked out some more beaches. We were told that the old Club Med beach was spectacular so we had to drive up to Governor’s Harbour the capital; which is half way up the island and it takes 1.5 hours to drive to. Once you are in to the town then you turn right at the Kalik Beer liquor store. You drive up a hill which is very pretty being lined with bougainvillea flowers and handsome housing. You will come to the end of the paved road and then turn left and then right and drive down to the beach. It actually is not on the grounds of the Club Med but right beside it. There was a hurricane that wiped out most of the buildings, but the grounds are still being kept up with the hope of the sale of the property. Personally if I had a bunch of spare million dollars I would snap this piece of property up really quickly. The grounds are great but the beach is to die for. It is wide and long and white with pink sand ingrained into it. The water is shallow with beautiful shades of turquoise to stare at.

I did not want to leave this place, it was heaven. If I could build a house on this property or develop it and live there I would be eternally happy waking up to this view each morning. There was not a soul on it for the first hour and then 3 people and a town dog wandered down. We had to leave because we wanted to check out Whiteland Beach as well. Darren backed out the car and got stuck in a sand trench. So I got into the driver’s seat and he pushed us out. There was no one around for miles to push us out, so I was a bit tense.

We were on our way and we turned into another Caribbean side beach which was almost equally as lovely as the Club Med Pink Beach. We snapped some photos and drove on. We stopped to see an Atlantic side beach and it was not near as pretty but still much prettier than say a California beach. We stopped into the grocery store for a supply or two and I asked the guy the directions to Whiteland Beach. It is notoriously hard to get to. We followed his directions and we did not find it. We wasted about ½ hour looking and then gave up and went home to Powell Pointe to spend our last night on the island. We relaxed on the boardwalk of the Marina and took in the sunset which was beautiful.

Eleuthera Beaches and Sharks

Darren Cannelldcannell@darrencannell.comeleutheraislandbeaches3https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/43470344619714620102010-10-20T05:45:41.931Z2016-09-01T21:58:04.922Z2010-10-27T14:07:44.529ZBudapest - the Buda side

The Hilton West End is a 10 minute walk to the Danube River. We made our way to the Parliament buildings and it is unbelievable how large and ornate they are, they are quite jaw-dropping. We crossed the Chain bridge with its huge lion statues guarding the entrance to this beautiful bridge. It leads directly to the base of the Budapest Palace grounds which are 1.5 kms long in entirety. We walked up the steps through the park which is a bit of a climb. The views are glorious at the top and there is much to explore. Dax’s little legs couldn’t make it to the churches at the far end but we did do quite a bit of discovery of the palace and found an out of the way balcony which wrapped around one of the palace buildings which hung over the castle wall. I still don’t even know if we were supposed to be there or not?

Dax eventually needed a break and we came upon a delightful smell and we followed our noses to the Hungarian funnel cake maker. It was a nice reprieve from walking and Dax was thrilled. He ended up eating his dessert before his lunch that day; what the heck we are on holidays. We found an outdoor cafe overlooking Budapest and I ordered their specialty of Hungarian goulash and bread. I am not much of a dipper but I dipped all of the 4 slices of bread in that goulash and was so full I rolled back down the hill. All of these outdoor cafes come with blankets over the chairs to wrap around your legs and they are quite necessary because in October it can get quite chilly just like Canada.

budapest-13https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/9258072211584031792011-03-10T22:53:45.420Z2016-09-01T21:58:04.877Z2011-04-01T12:50:24.872ZWith the Sisters

Even if the Buenos Aires airport was the worst most unwelcoming place to Canadians my sisters made up for it with welcoming us into Argentina. They were up waiting for us when we arrived at midnight.

We hung out and yakked nonstop for a couple of hours and then we all went to bed. They had jetlag just like we did. We were 5 hours off of our California clock and still recovering from our huge time change of crossing the Pacific Ocean. It was a good thing that I came packing with some Vietnamese coffee to wake me up and it did the trick of getting me back on target. Vietnam supplies StarBucks so you know the coffee is good. My sister in law gave me some supplies when we saw them in Bali. Even with the added boost of the coffee we still did not get it together enough to leave the apartment that we rented until 3 pm.

We set out on a walk through Recoletta which is where we are staying now and got lost several times. Our goal was to walk our way to the bus station to buy our tickets to take us from Mendoza, Argentina over the Andes Mountains to Santiago, Chile. We finally found the station and thank God the Andesmar agent spoke English, which made it mucho easy. Most Argentineans do not speak any English and this would be one of the harder Spanish speaking countries to make yourself understood that I have ever experienced. This is my problem, not theirs but if they want to be an international destination then they are going to have to start learning English in school. Maybe they don’t want to, who knows? The bus tickets were only 330 pesos for my family of 3, so cheap like borsht.

After the bus depot we needed to find the Buquebus terminal to buy our ferry tickets across the water to Colonia, Uruguay. This is where Michelle my oldest sibling who was on map duty accidentally toured us through the warehouse / homeless / dockyard district. That was interesting and we had quite a few good laughs. We made it to the cruise ship terminal which we had no intention of finding and stopped for a much needed beverage. We forged ahead and eventually found the Buquebus only to be rejected by the ticket agent who could not find 6 seats on any of the ferries going to Colonia. We did not know that for the first time this year of 2011 Argentina established a National holiday for two days in a row and everyone and their dog was on holidays. That was disappointing and I guess Uruguay was not meant to be on this tour. Maybe another decade.

After the 6 km hike of the different lovely areas and the heat and a wining 7 year old we all decided to take a cab back to the apartment. Our cab driver got lost and we arrived 10 minutes later than the sisters. We got changed and got ready to go out for supper. We found a great restaurant that took children, 2 had turned us down before we found this one. It was a great and a fun experience but a shame about the food. I ordered a chicken salad and it truly was the most boring and drab food I have ever been served. It was served on a large plate of lettuce stacked into a flower type thing and two slabs of chicken heavily cooked with Rosemary. You had to flavour your salad with the oil and vinegar and salt provided. Many Argentinean restaurants do not even have pepper. No one really liked their meal; Dax would not even eat his home cut fries because they were flavourless. He liked my flavourless chicken though. The food was edible, just barely but the wine – Alamos Cabernet Sauvignon was amazing and this made up for the food. Well, Argentina is not known for its food, it is well known for wine. If anything we will all drop a little weight and walk off our wine calories if my sister Michelle has anything to say about it.

What an incredible day we had at the biggest game reserve in the world. We set our alarms for 4:30 am to take advantage of the 6 am gate opening. We piled into one car and were off. We paid our 180 Rand per person which is less than 30 CDN and spent more than 8 hours driving around the 600 km long park. We were not expecting to see as much as we did, we either were incredibly lucky or the stars were all aligned for us because we saw so much and almost everything we could possibly want to see. We stuck to the paved road for a while. We wanted to get off of this because for some reason we thought that we would see more wildlife on the grid roads. But animals don’t care really, we found this out very quickly. The first hour was so exciting and I will try and explain to you what we saw. The first animal was the guinea hen, which was really no big deal and I was thinking to myself if this is all we see, then I am going to be so disappointed. Then we saw deer like creatures and I am not sure of there name and over the 8 hours we probably saw 400 of them or more. Then we saw deer like thinks with horns and about 300 of them over the day. Then an eagle like thing but bigger flew over our car so we watched that for a while. Then the zebras were spotted and a baby zebra which was so cute and we were focused on that by the side of the road and then Chelsea screams there’s a lion and I am thinking it is probably a rock but sure enough there were several female lions in the brush.

The best part was that they were stocking the zebras. Then the zebras quickly went across the road after ascertaining that they were in jeopardy and waited and watched the lions as they moved towards the zebras. I had to go to the bathroom so badly at this point, I asked Darren to drive forward up a mile or so for me to go and then we could drive back. So we moved forward a bit and there in front of us so close to the road was a lone male bull elephant munching away on something.

We were awestruck and then two giraffes popped their heads up directly behind the elephant. It was amazing and so much to watch at once. I have to pee so bad that it is becoming painful but no one wants to miss this. Meanwhile the same pride of lions is moving in the trees and we see that there is a different grouping of zebras that they are now stocking. There is so much to watch that it is impossible to leave. After another 10 minutes of watching, I made my apologies to the group and begged Darren to pull forward somewhere safer for me to have some relief. It was very hard to leave Animal Kingdom behind but we pulled forward to safety which was only about 400 yards ahead. I bailed out of the car and I have never been so scared to pee in my life. I was probably being stocked by a hyena at the time, who knows if they like cougar flesh or not? Anyways I finally get back into the car and my heart was pounding and it took 5 years off of my life to pee outside of the safety of the car, but when you got to go you got to go. We quickly drove back to watch the whole scene play out again.

We kept driving and this time we moved to a different grid road and eventually saw hyenas and they were stocking different zebras, the hyenas were too far to get a good picture and they kept dodging behind trees. Darren then stopped for a tortoise crossing the road. We saw more deers and antler type deer’s and then we had to stop as this very large elk sized thing with a bristle of fur standing up along his spine and he had odd stripes and antlers and was very peculiar looking walked across the road. We stared at him for quite some time. We drove along and Dan yells there is a giraffe. We cruised along and I spotted a ton of buzzards eating and fighting over a carcass that was spread around into 4 piles. It looked to be a giraffe carcass. The buzzards were creepy to watch but interesting. Then Dan yells again stop back up there is the ugliest bird thing with a read head. So we did and what an incredibly ugly and awkward bird that was about 3 feet tall with bright intense red on the sides of his head. He walked in this prehistoric manner and was uggggly. He was alone and had some sort of fetus baby animal in his mouth which he was obviously going to eat. None of us had ever seen anything like this before not even on the Animal Planet channel.

We stopped at a rest stop to eat lunch and it was only 10:30 am but we were famished. We had packed a lunch and we devoured it. There was this cool magnetized poster that people could move color coordinated magnets to parts of Kruger where they had spotted certain animals. Someone had put a leopard coloured magnet close to the gate that we came in and that made sense because Chelsea said that she saw something as soon as we came in and she thought it was a cat. We stuck around but could not see anything, so she probably did see a leopard.

We moved on and chose a different back road to see if we could experience anything different and very quickly we saw a troupe of monkeys and their babies walking along the road and in the ditch. We watched these guys for quite some time they were even interested in us and when they came near we closed our windows. Moving along we saw what we thought were very large rodents moving across the road in the distance and when we got closer we saw that they were meerkats and they did not stick around for long, they had a purpose and they were off. We saw some more odd SA elk like things with the bristly back along their spine. We checked out a few watering holes and saw tons of hippos. We drove along and noticed that there were four safari jeeps full of people in the distance and at Kruger everyone stops where anyone has already stopped because that means that there is something to see. We were going to drive past the 4 safari jeeps and pull up on the end to watch then Chelsea screams there is a lion. Darren had his arm literally hanging out of the window which you are not supposed to do at any time. It turns out that there was a male and a female lion directly on the side of the road and when we actually noticed them was when we were literally 2 feet away and I gasped and Darren yanked his arm in and did the window up quickly and stopped. I was in shock I think, because I could not even pull up my camera to take a shot. We realized that this is what everyone had stopped for and we were blocking there view. We did not know what to do, so we backed up. If you can imagine about 25 people giving us the most dirty looks on the planet well that was what it was like. They were waving at us to turn our car off and blah blah blah. We were about 10 feet away from the lions now and we had a great view. I piped up with “where are the rest of them?” Because they usually travel in a pride and then I figured out that they were alone to mate and sure enough after watching for about 10 minutes while these lions slept; the male got up and mounted the female and was making this ungodly growling sound as he was biting down on her ears and neck and he literally mated with her for under one minute. Personally I was not impressed but it was a sight to see, that I will never forget. We were all not even breathing the whole time because how often are you two feet away from wild lions and get to watch a lion love scene 10 feet away through your front car window? We realized that this was literally the climax of the whole trip, it was so exciting to watch these beautiful creatures performing with not a care in the world that they had an audience. The male eventually got off of her and she rolled on her back and tried to get playful with him and he was having nothing to do with this. He yawned and looked like he was going to go back to sleep when she got up and walked away with not even a glance back at her mate. He got up and walked after her after stretching and panted after her a few minutes later. I still can’t believe that we were blessed with such a show.

We did not even want to leave but the show was over, so we drove away. Within minutes Darren had stopped again and we watched a dung beetle roll a softball sized ball of dung across the road and Daxtin videotaped it and made it into a movie right away. It was cute to watch even though it was on a much smaller scale than the ‘lion lovin’.

We decided to follow a safari jeep full of people because they had more eyes than us to spot things. We stopped whenever they did and we saw a multitude of deer type things and then a wildebeest comes out of nowhere and stomps across the road. He stops and stares us down and I was just about to say to Darren back up quick and then the wildebeest strode off into the trees. Wow he was big. Then Darren stopped again because he spotted a bright florescent green chameleon crossing the road, so watched and waited for him to do this and they are not quick but no one had seen one quite so big, he was beautiful as far as lizard type things go. Then Dax spotted a ferret which I did not even think they lived in SA. We watched him for a while, he was cute. Then we turned onto another road and right away we were greeted with about 20-30 baboons walking around all of the cars that had stopped. These creatures have such attitude and they aren’t scared of us and they would come toward us and we would quickly close the windows, I do not trust those things at all. They had babies clinging to them and they were kind of cute and all of them were interesting to watch but they were bored with us and eventually they moved on. We spotted another safari jeep that had stopped and it was for a whole bunch of these prehistoric red headed huge walking birds that we had seen one of before. We watched these ugly things for a while and then drove off because they gave everyone the creeps even more so than buzzards. We turned onto the paved road to start our journey back home and we saw repeats of the animals, like giraffes and zebras and deers by the dozens etc. We had not seen anything interesting for about an hour and had come across a rather open savannah dotted with trees and I spotted two rhinosores and I was pumped because the black rhino is a rare sighting. We watched these guys in the distance and they move quite quickly.

We drove on after a long day and I then spotted a lone elephant up on a savannah hill and it looked so cool because he was so huge. We drove out the gate still excited by what we had seen in the space of 8 hours. It was definitely one of the most incredible things that I have ever done. Our seven year old was bouncing off the walls by this time and if there was not a million things that could have killed him in Kruger I would have said go for a run. We were all exhausted watching and searching for this long and so we headed home which took less than a half hour. I wanted a brief stop at the grocery store to pick up some great South African wine which I thought would be a great way to wrap up an absolutely perfect day. We did not expect to see as much as we did, it was utterly amazing and everyone if given the opportunity should experience a once in a lifetime joy like we just did.

We went to the beach the one day but we picked the wrong day to go. The next day would have been hotter. I left my dress on over by bikini because it was a bit chilly at times with the wind in December. Everyone wears their bikinis and bathing suits so that is not an issue. The water is clear and pretty not Caribbean colors but nicer than a Pacific Ocean or Atlantic Ocean beach. We also drove out to the newly made Palm Islands that are shaped like a palm tree which is amazing feat of engineering. The new Atlantis Dubai is at the heart of the Palm Islands.

The sand is goldy, champagne color with tones of grey. The beach was quite crowded but expansive with lots of things for kids to do. There are many beaches to go to, some are private to a club which you have to pay to get into and some are public. We stayed for a couple of hours. It was Mason’s first time on the beach and he is now one year old and he kept trying to eat the sand. We thought that he would quit after the first attempt because sand does not taste good but no he was good for another 5 tries much to the dismay of his father. I thought it was hilarious though.

We had booked a tour through our Riad for a tour of the Medina. I was amazed that it was only 200 dirham for all three of us; approximately 25 CDN dollars and that was for 3 hours. A man named Edres came to collect us. He was impeccably dressed and very distinguished looking and spoke perfect English with a lovely accent. He toured us around for 4 ½ hours and schooled us on everything about the Moroccan people their culture, religion, food, education, bakeries you name it. This was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I learned so much about their history which fascinates me. Edres led us around this maze and there was no way that we would have ever found our way back home to Riad Fez. If you can imagine over 320,000 people living in 500 acres with 1700 narrow roads and alleyways with two and three story walls surrounding the roads and really no signs to speak of. And if there is then it was in Arabic. There are 220 mosques, 220 bakeries, 220 fountains for fresh water, 220 hammans in this 1300 year old Medina, the oldest and most authentic in Morocco. In the Souk part of the Medina it is unbelievably crowded, everyone is doing their shopping for fresh food etc. We bought carrots and nougat – which is a colourful candy confection which has nuts in it. Daxtin loved it but it was too sweet for me. What I did like was the sesame seed dessert treat.

Edres brought us to the carpet dealers and we got to experience how they are handmade by the 5 women. They are amazingly beautiful carpets and the men must of rolled out over 30 carpets for us to view and that was 5 men doing that. They were asking thousands for some and we bargained a bit which is part of the Moroccan culture. These rugs are officially stamped by the government. I cannot afford or chose not to afford one but the whole experience was very pleasant and not harassing like I here that the Turkish do things. They even served us mint tea which is everywhere. I am trying to get Darren to drink it because it is very good for digestion.

Edres also took us to the largest and oldest (1300s) leather tanneries in Morocco and they are quite famous and I learned about them from a picture calendar in the 90’s and have wanted to go and see them ever since and that is why I chose to go to Fez. Our noses told us that we were coming closer to the tanneries and we were provided with a large bunch of mint to put under our nose. The bunch of mint would cost about 5 dollars at home, but it grows in abundance here. The tannery process is an amazing one of slaughtering goats, laying them out in the sun, to dry and then soaking them in huge pools of pigeon poop and lye to remove the fur then on to the all-natural dye pools of poppies to get the reds and saffron for the yellows etc. Then they are dried and made into leather products. Well I do love leather and I loved the little goats that sacrificed themselves for my pretty coats that I purchased along with the unique footstools, purse and other things. I made a friend there, the salesman and gave him 20 CND dollars to remember me by. I shipped it all home and hopefully it gets there, fingers crossed.

medinawalledcitytour3https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/39969813801086839242010-12-25T16:28:46.235Z2016-09-01T21:58:04.624Z2010-12-26T19:24:17.982ZDriving to Jordan Valley Marriott by the Dead Sea

We let Reanne – our GPS decide which route to take over to highway 65 and Reanne chooses a cow path up and over the mountains, I nicknamed it Death Road. When you are manoeuvring around the large potholes you have to go precariously close to the edges and I am a bit phobic about roads like this. The views were quite stunning and there were times that we were driving only 2 kms per hour. We were the only car on the trail all of the rest were trucks and four wheel drives.

There were tons of Bedouin campers and groups out having a great time doing I don’t know what? Lots of families looked like they were camping; after all it was the weekend which is Friday and Saturday here. Once we were through the mountain range and onto safer ground then I did breathe a sigh of relief. Really though in retrospect it was a tremendous drive and everyone waves to you like you are some long lost friend. We felt very safe in the middle of this strange mountain range. You don’t want to put your head down to do homework because the rocks and mountains were so cool looking and different terrain. When we drove out of the mountains there was sand dunes and desert and flatness and we stopped for a pee and a chance to let Daxtin run around in the sand.

The drive was 127 kms and it took over 3 hours. It was clear sailing on highway 65 which was paved and a normal road and lots of little towns along the way. Once you get closer to the Dead Sea area there is a ton of agriculture, mostly tomatoes and corn from what we could see. It is strange to see desert turn into green through aeration. We finally spotted water but it was the salt pans of the Dead Sea. When we actually spotted the Dead Sea this was quite exciting for me because I use to teach Christian Ethics and all of this suddenly I was living this experience of the Holy Land for the first time. We stopped and took pictures of the Dead Sea and drove on to the Jordan Valley Marriott.

When we arrived into our hotel, it was quite decorated for the Christmas Season which was great, I was not sure what to expect in a country that is predominantly Muslim. The Marriott came through with Christmas Eve celebrations of Christmas carols being played, a huge bonfire and roasting marshmallows, roasted chestnuts, mulled wine and hot chocolate. We had just swum in the Dead Sea which was surprisingly warm and it was a beautiful night to go swimming. It is amazing how buoyant you are in the saltiest body of water on earth, it was totally unreal. Dax just kept swimming around because there is no fear of sinking or drowning. Here at the Dead Sea we are over 415 metres below sea level the lowest spot on earth. There is a low calm here which is sort of indescribable maybe because it is so low?

We hung out at the Hotel Saint George for a couple of hours to take our 2 pm flight. We had two legs to get to Mendoza the wine region or Mecca of Argentina. Let’s face it I came to Argentina for the wine and it was calling my name with its sweet caress and who am I to ignore such a calling? The flights went well and we got in late to the Mendoza airport. We rustled up some cabs and we were on our way to the Villagio Boutique Hotel which is one block from the main square or park. Our cab was 28 pesos and the sister’s cab was 100 plus Michelle the nice one tipped him on top of it. What she did not know was that he ripped them off 72 pesos plus a tip. We all had a good laugh and I told them to think of it as a 28 peso ride for each of them to help them digest that they just got severely taken advantage of. It happens to the best of us, as seasoned of travelers as we are we still get royally ripped off occasionally.

We found a Subway to buy sandwiches and a convenience store to buy water and wine. We were on our way back to our hotel and this man came up to us and asked if we spoke English. He was a Belique and he was telling us his hard luck story of getting robbed and they took his passport blah blah blah. It could of had a shred of reality to it but there were two inconsistencies in his story so I then started to do my whole analysing of him and many of us were falling for the story. Darren gave him his card to email us to see how he fared with the embassy etc. My nicest sister gave him 30 pesos and it trickled down to me giving him 10 pesos. Anyways we would like to believe that we at the very least helped a desperate soul.

We tried a reserve Malbec which I can’t remember the name, it did not really stand out for us. It is Malbec country up here at the base of the Andes Mountains. The sisters stayed up and talked and drank until 1 am which is late for me. I only got about 5 hours of sleep this night.

After the Red Fort we were deposited back at our hotel for the rest of the day. The driver offered to take us somewhere but we are use to exploring on our own so we set off down the main road where we had quite allot of fun. The people were very friendly and always said hello to us and asked where we were from. Apparently White people do not walk in India because we were quite an oddity, but this way you get to learn more about the people. All along the way Tuk Tuk and taxi drivers were following us trying to get our commission and found it unbelievable that we actually wanted to walk through all of this chaos. The children get quite excited practicing their English which is way better than my Indian (I am pathetically unilingual). There are dogs everywhere and one in particular was quite excited to see us. He was the first one I had seen with a collar so he obviously belonged to someone. He had just chased 3 cows out of his area on the road and I thought that he was going to be aggressive to us but it was the opposite he acted like he was dying for affection and so we gave him some.

We finally made it to a department styled store to check out and we bought socks because we did not pack enough and we are in hotels for a while without our own laundry. I tried on some Indian style clothes that I loved but they did not fit and I was determined to get something. We moved onto a mall which was barely occupied by tenants and we did not find anything to buy here either. I need to go to a market so I can barter. We were relentlessly hounded by one Tuk Tuk driver on the way out of the mall and Dax wanted a ride back to the hotel and he said 20 rupees for all 3 of us, which I thought was suspiciously cheap. My spidy senses were correct and he drove us past the hotel to his Uncle’s shop of handicrafts. We were not impressed and did not go in (after telling him we had no interest in going in) so we crossed the busy road and walked back to the hotel which was not far. We actually went into the shopping arcade in the hotel complex which is usually somewhere that I would avoid but the prices were reasonable and I bought some silk shirts for work to wear under my suits. They were all made on site and were only 13 dollars each - CHA-CHING.

When we arrived into Prague it was such a relief because we did not think that we were going to get out of Poland that day. We wanted to buy our next train ticket to Budapest and get that out of the way. I managed to find the most horrible ticket agent on planet Earth. I believe that she must have once been high up in the former Communist regime and was still angry that Communism failed in Czechoslovakia. To make a long story short, what should have been a 5 minute experience of purchasing train tickets ended up being a 70 minute painful and frustratingly hideous time? That is one hour and ten minutes of my life that I am never going to get back. She made a total of 3 mistakes on our tickets and had to reissue tickets which she wanted us to pay for. She had long dark hair and glasses and her name was Beeotch. God was punishing me for something this day and she was it. In the end she would not even look at us because her supervisor had to step in and save us with correct tickets to Budapest.

Wieliczka Salt Mine was a working salt mine since the 1300’s and finally closed in 1996. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and we took a tour down to the depths of 500 + feet to see some of the most amazing salt mine shafts and colossal rooms sculpted into chapels where the whole thing is salt – floors, ceiling, stairs, alter you name it was all carved out of salt rock.

Poland has its charms for example when we were on the first train to Prague a man came by through the different train cars and was selling beer out of his gym bag. You would not see that in Canada. The Polish train system is a nightmare and we missed our connection in Katowice because they changed platforms on us and only announced it in Polish so many of us were stranded in Katowice. We took a later connection which has led to another connection in Poland and I am nervous that we are going to miss another train to Prague. I will let you know.Too many people smoke here, it is like the 60’s in Canada when it was cool to smoke, yuk.

The women here love their shoes and 99% wear boots or heels everywhere and I felt really underdressed but comfortable in my black, Nike runners. They have great boots here and I had a hard time leaving this place without a few pairs, but where would I put them, I am already at my maximum weight for luggage, such a shame. Food, wine, and boots are all rather inexpensive and those are 3 of my favourite things so I can’t wait to return here but I am not taking the train.

I really had a hard time leaving Riad Fez and we all would like to return someday soon to this amazing place in an amazing Medina. The people that worked at this Riad are some of the nicest, friendliest and most helpful I have ever experienced on my travels. Auwa helped us with our train arrangements and tour set up and hamman treatments. Their English was also very good so that helped us to have a great holiday there. This is one place that I would feel very comfortable recommending to anyone to stay here, from the Queen to Brangelina. It was very luxurious.

leavingfez2https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/56918315518557599782010-11-22T10:05:46.181Z2016-09-01T21:58:04.337Z2010-11-24T18:55:57.753ZBack to Canada

We flew back for Dad’s funeral and it only took 4 different flights, yikes. Mom was a rock, more solid than you could imagine. It was really nice to see everyone even under the circumstances. We had to get organized and sit and work on the Eulogy. Thank God Kim and Jackie volunteered for that. All I could manage was a reading and I only managed to get through it because I did not lift my head up once. One look at a crying family member and I would have been toast. My nephew Jarrett did the second reading and he did really well. The funeral was as lovely as a funeral could get. The day was warm for November and the Minister was really great. We had many of our friends and my in-laws come from Saskatoon, I was overwhelmed by the Saskatoon contingency that came to support us. It was nice to see cousins and relatives, but I wish it was under better circumstances. Losing a parent is so surreal and it takes a very long time to sink in. It was so hard leaving my Mom but thank God my beautiful sister-in-law Melissa and her baby my nephew Mason decided to stay with her for a few weeks. We invited Mom to tour with us but I think that she needs to grieve in her own way. After all she was with the man for 65 years and that is hard to comprehend. I hope that Mom joins us somewhere along the way on this World Exploration.I feel strongly that my Dad is with us watching over us as our new guardian. He is in heavenly smoker’s paradise having coffee, telling jokes and smoking his roll-his-own Rothmans cigarettes right now. Dad is happy. He left this world on his terms and I am happy for him. We will miss you and I love you Dad.

Cyprus is great! Great people, great weather, a ton of things to see and explore and great food; what’s not to like? We spent two weeks there and I could easily have spent 2 months. One thing worth mentioning is that the Larnaca airport is a beautiful and very large airport with modern amenities etc. We sorry to say goodbye to all of our new cat friends; we will miss them. We will definitely be back to Cyprus someday most likely during the high season though. Because at times we felt like we were in a ghost town. We left Cyprus on Air Egypt and they are a nice airline that does not exactly leave promptly but they seem to both times make up the time in the air. On our second flight from Cairo to Johannesburg, South Africa they supplied us with a little overnight bag with socks, tooth brush, toothpaste, eye mask and earphones. I have had this given to me before but only when I was upgraded to first class with Air Canada. The Cairo airport had free WiFi which was nice and we caught up with our email.

This island really needs to pick up their pace if they want to become a serious tourist destination. From the port of Scarborough it does not look like much and they really are not set up for cruisers. Most people were back on board within an hour or two.

The taxi drivers were very pushy and that is not endearing at all. Tobago some may consider to be more South America due to its closeness to the continent. We walked around for an hour to see what they had to offer but I was even having a hard time taking photos, there just was not much to take a picture of. We could have taken a taxi to the beach or to the Fort but we have seen so many of both already and we just wanted to get back on the boat and relax. I ran into a man in the elevator while back on board and he said that they took a taxi to Pigeon Point which is a beautiful beach, so we missed that. We really did not give this island a chance to shine but if Darren had his way he would not even get off the boat in all of these ports, his preference is to stay on the boat at all times. Darren was always joking that he was getting the shakes because he was too far away from the buffet line, hah. The average cruiser in my opinion is over 55 and overweight and you know that many of these people actually do not leave the buffet line which kind of sickens me. The average weight gain for me is 3 – 4 pounds on any given cruise but I am sure that many people gain 15-20 pounds because they seriously do not stop eating and drinking alcohol. Just to give you some interesting little facts about the Heartbeat of the Operation of the Galley - on an average day at sea they prepare over 13,000 dishes for crew and guests. In any given 7 day cruise the ship will go through over 9000 pounds of beef, 19,000 pounds of fresh vegetables 3600 eggs, 825 pounds of lobster 7,000 pounds of potatoes, over 48,000 litres of milk, 3500 pounds of sugar, 9,250 bottles of wine and 9,000 bottles of beer. I just wanted to give you some factual numbers of certain products just to show you to what degree I am talking about. It is rather obscene isn't it?

Well we finished our last meal and our last entertainment show and we had to put our luggage outside our cabin by 11 pm to be collected during the night. We had a 8 am meeting call to our station to deboard so we got up at 6 am and had our last breakfast and left the ship, grabbed our luggage and caught a cab to our post cruise hotel. The disembarkation process is seamless and painless, you don't want to leave your new floating home but you are quite sick of food by this point. I ate lobster on Formal night but I don't even really love it, I ate cheesecake every night and I don't need another peice for quite a while; however, I am going to miss the freshly made waffles, with berries and whip cream, noone makes them like Celebrity.

After driving for 45 minutes we came to a dead end in the souk area of town. We parked and were led down a labyrinth to our hotel. Wow, I had read how beautiful Riad Fez is and it did not let us down. It is an absolutely gorgeous hotel and oasis in the middle of this busy bustling and crowded world. The tile and marble mosaics and fountains and architecture left us taking pictures with our mouth open and that was just in the inner courtyard. This Riad Fez is truely a work of art. It originally was a mansion of some very rich Moroccan family who had moved out of the Medina and decided to refurbish their old home which happens to be from the early 1300s and opened it up to let foreigners experience what a traditional Riad is. We were greeted by sweetened mint tea from fresh mint in beautiful little silver teapots; it was really addictive. Riad Fez is a thing of beauty. The carved plasters and marble and hand done mosaics are so beautiful that this place could be a museum or an art gallery. Their dining room opens at 8 pm which is very much like the Greeks and Mexicans. I don’t get it because I just heard the call to prayer and that was at 5:00 am, so maybe the Moroccans are nappers like the Mexicans? It turns out that they are, they close down their shops around 12 noon and go home for a nap.

On the drive from the airport to our Riad I had spotted only two women on the streets without the scarf or head gear as I like to call it. Also with that come the long sleeves and only feet showing. It was 25 degrees Celsius when we landed at 6:20 pm so Nadine is not going to be a happy camper in the clothes department. The good news is I did not see even one man with shorts on so personally I think Darren should wear pants as well, don’t you?

riadfezouroasisinthedesert3https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/6552643392117467502011-05-05T13:50:56.631Z2016-09-01T21:58:04.017Z2011-05-05T14:00:03.659ZSt. John, United States Virgin Islands

We took the car ferry from Red Hook ferry terminal in the eastern part of St. Thomas to Cruz Bay terminal in St. John. No reservation is required; you just drive on and pay your 45 dollar return trip. You also need to pay 3 dollars per car to get into the terminal area. The trip takes approximately 20 minutes to get to St. John. You can also take a passenger ferry which is what most cruisers would take, but then you don’t have the luxury of having your own car to explore the lovely island of St. John.

We drove around the tight road spaces of Cruz Bay where their many shops and restaurants. There is a beach there as well but we were not interested in that. We wanted to check out the views and Trunk Bay mostly. We drove around in the inland areas where you can stop and get great pictures of the views that St. John is full of. We finally made our way to Maho Bay area where there is a development called Peter’s Bay Estates.

If I win the lottery I could be inspired to buy one of these homes. Their views are incredible with some of the best views that I have ever seen in the world. I stopped and got out of the car near an estate called Coco de Mer to take some pictures of the views. I later went to a website where you can rent Coco de Mer and it is mere 17,000 per week at Christmas time. Maybe when I am a rock star I would be able to afford this rental.

We drove on westerly towards Trunk Bay. The roads are hairpin and up and down and quite a little ride around this area. We spotted a deer in the bush and then another one a mile or so down closer to Trunk Bay. Trunk Bay is managed by the government and it also carries a charge of 4 USD per adult. Trunk Bay has an underwater snorkelling trail and a life guard. Trunk Bay Beach is commonly mentioned in the top ten beaches in the world as well.

I found it much prettier than Magens Bay Beach but it was not near as pretty as Lighthouse Beach on Eleuthera Island, Bahamas. At Trunk Bay Beach the water is more turquoise in color and the sand is much whiter than Magens Bay Beach. But it is still a fairly narrow strip of sand and I like an expansive and wide beach so you can appreciate its beauty. We hung out at Trunk Bay for a few hours; Dax played in the sand and made dry sand dunes instead of wet sand castles. He is a bit stubborn and odd sometimes. The sand was very pretty and there are no waves on Trunk Bay it is just calm Caribbean waters that are clear and pretty. There were many cruisers here you can tell by their beach towels. They have to leave fairly early to catch a taxi back to Cruz Bay and then a passenger ferry back to St. Thomas in order to catch their boat. We had the luxury of leaving when we wanted. We leisurely got changed in the shower stall area and loaded into the car.

We drove back to Cruz Bay and found the car ferry terminal. We had about a ½ hour wait before it left; they leave every hour. We produced our return ticket and the ferry sailed off for St. Thomas. Darren fell asleep in the car and Dax and I went to the small passenger lounge balcony up above and watched as we got closer to St. Thomas. From Red Hook car ferry terminal to the Marriott is about a ½ hour drive and by the time we got back we were bagged. We made supper and stayed in and watched tv and we also caught the Carnival Liberty sailing out as well. I don’t think I will ever grow tired of watching cruise ships sail out to sea, there is something so romantic and adventurous about it.

This landmark is a force of its own. It is so monolithic that it creates its own weather patterns. When we were driving to Capetown you can see it over 60 kms away it is that big. Table basically sits in the middle of Capetown and its presence is seen and felt everywhere. Our hotel the Mandela Rhodes Place has great views of the mountain and you can watch the clouds roll off the top of it and it looks very eerie.

Apparently those clouds provided much moisture that stuck to the rock and the plants and then that accumulated into water and it ran down the mountain for early settler’s usage. There is even flora and fauna that is indigenous to this rock. As well it has the Dassie which is also indigenous to the rock and they are what I would call cute little cat sized rodent- thrill seekers. The Dassies cling to the rocks and climb all over them without a care in the world not worried about the fact that it is one mile straight down to the bottom.

To get to the lower gondola you have to drive up a steep curvy road with beautiful homes which have amazing views of Capetown and the beaches. When you get there you have to spend some money to get your ticket onto the gondola that holds 63 people. It is a quick 5 minute ride up. At the top there is lots of history to read about the formation of the rock and the shipwrecks on Cape Point etc and there are also 3 hikes to explore, the longest being 45 minutes long and you can view the different plants and amazing views of Capetown.

There is a ton of picture taking moments to be had. Remember to take a jacket because it is at least 10 degrees cooler at the top and very windy. We really enjoyed this; it was a very worthwhile adventure. People that are fearful of heights; I liked this better than going up to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Darren Cannelldcannell@darrencannell.comtablemountain2https://sites.google.com/feeds/content/darrencannell.com/nadine-s-travel-journal/30742167219236195302010-10-06T11:54:22.663Z2016-09-01T21:58:03.994Z2010-10-06T12:07:04.344ZIceland Home of the Viking People

We landed very early into Keflavik which was voted best airport in Europe, and I would have to agree. The Gulf Stream winds keep this island temperate but that was arguable the day we landed. We picked up our rental and drove to Reykjavik the capital city where most Icelanders live. We had to make an emergency pit stop on the highway and Darren got to experience firsthand the usefulness of the Icelandic moss.

The lunar landscape is very unique due to this being a volcanic island and as far as the eye can see is rocky black lava or pumice stone covered with moss and colourful lichen. The Blue Lagoon adds an even more surreal vision to your eyes with its glowing blue waters alive with restorative powers. To prove this my son and I slept 12 straight hours after being in the Blue Lagoon. It could have also been due to their hardy yogurt which was divine; I could live on that stuff. The water was I am sorry to say much better even than Saskatoon water which I thought was the best that I have ever tasted. The people were very friendly and everywhere had a Saskatoon feel to it. Even at the Blue Lagoon Spa and Clinic where we stayed overnight it was like staying at your aunt’s house who happens to be a nun. It was ethereally quiet and comfortable with a great wholesome breakfast and the views were out of this world.

We stayed another night at the rockin hotel and the music actually stopped at 10 pm, so that was a Godsend. We got some much needed sleep and awoke rested. Darren had to get his butt to Miami International to pick up a rental car so that we could move hotels and see a thing or two. Trent and I were bidding for hotel rooms for the next 3 nights and Trent got lucky with Priceline.com and found us a 4 star room for 100 per night in Fort Lauderdale. We ended up with the Hyatt Regency Bonaventure. We drove north and on our way we came across a TJ MAXX and we had to stop. Darren’s luggage was destroyed by Avianca Airlines; the one wheel was almost off which would have left a big hole in his luggage. When we landed into Miami normally we would have talked to Avianca to get the cost of the suitcase allotted to us but we could not find the Avianca stand, smart on their part. We went shopping with no luck with the suitcase replacement, but Amy and I made the most out of the shopping. I scored a couple of cute bikinis and Amy found a dress.

We made our way to Fort Lauderdale and checked into the Hyatt. I upgraded for 35.00 per night to a one bedroom suite which gave us a huge living room dining room and kitchen. The bedroom itself was huge with a gargantuan bathroom and an extra bathroom off of the kitchen. It was a great deal I thought and it afforded us all a comfortable place to meet and eat on the outdoor balcony. Personally this hotel was more like a 5 star hotel than a 4 star. We went to the pool and it was very nice with a huge waterfall, we sat in the sun for a while and went out for supper to Panera Bread which is a chain and that was a good meal too with an added dessert for only 99 cents.

We decided to go on the water taxi in the Fort Lauderdale intercoastal waterways.

The cost was 20 dollars per adult and it was very relaxing and interesting to see the mansions that line the waterways. The narrator or guide on the boats would often give us home-grown trivia about some of the owners and what huge companies they owned and how much their home cost etc. We jumped on and off many times and went for lunch etc. at the Cheesecake Cafe; ate a huge piece of cheesecake and had a stomach ache for 3 hours. That is the price to pay for gluttony.

We made our way back to the hotel to sit at the pool for a while. I got to work out here two days in a row at the Hyatt. This fitness room wins hands down out of all of the hotels and timeshares we stayed at for the whole entire tour. Massive room with mucho new equipment gave me a great workout.

The next day we went out to another TJ MAXX and scored a suitcase for Darren; a nice lavender Hummer suitcase. Hummer may make sturdy road vehicles but sturdy suitcases remains to be seen. The Hummer was not my choice but Darren wanted it. I also bought two more bikinis. I am going to be in a bikini for the next 6 weeks solid so I thought why not. We also went to a Nordstrom Rack on our last day with Amy and Trent. Amy had never been to one so I felt I had to oblige her plus it is one of my more favourite places to shop for steals and deals.

This is the largest Spa in Europe and it is beautiful and sprawling, it makes the Moose Jaw spa in Saskatchewan look tiny. Szechenyi is on the Pest side of Budapest and has around 15 pools but I might have miscounted. They vary in temperature and mineral concentration. Our favourite was the large outdoor 38 degree pool. Dax and Darren settled in one spot and played Chess. I had to drag them to the different pools inside and outside. Another favourite was the current pool which dragged you around the pool that was fun. We spent 3 hours there and could have stayed longer but it was already past Dax’s bed time. We all slept very well that night. We wanted to go to the Gellert and Rudas Spas but ran out of time; these spas are on the Buda side of the river.

No two places could be a larger juxtaposition than India and Singapore. I tknew this in advance and I believed that Singapore would be a much needed welcome change after India and I was correct. Singapore is undoubtedly the cleanest place that I have ever been to. It is lush and lovely and clean and compared to India it is heaven. Singapore is also a little boring after coming from India.

We had some jetlag when we flew into Singapore due to the overnight flight. So the first whole day was a right off. I was also bagged due to being on my Mexican penicillinia and fighting the Indian infection in my elbow. I monitored my elbow day by day and never did go to a hospital, but I could have easily in Singapore. It is well known for having great medical care in Asia.

The next day we toured around on the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) or subway. Later that night we went to the Night Zoo to experience nocturnal animals the animals that you never get to see at zoos or on safaris, like the leopard; we saw one and a clouded leopard as well. They are beautiful animals but it is still a zoo and I end up feeling sorry for these animals and wonder to myself why humans are so cruel. You take a train through the zoo and you get to see all of these animals while they are eating etc. After the South African Safaris I think all zoos will be boring and not the same. We also had our fish pedicure for 5 USD. I was expecting schools of fish to eat away at my feet, but it is not like that. They don’t give you a pedicure they just tickly your feet and by taking miniscule bites of dead skin off of your feet. I could not tell after that they had done anything, so it is more for the experience.

You have to take an expensive bus to and from the zoo so expect that in advance and you won’t be disappointed.

The next day we took it easy and went shopping at the Bugis Street Market. I personally could have done this for about 3 hours but Darren and Dax get bored so we ended up shopping for only ½ hour and I picked up a long dress for the cruise in April. This market is pretty crowded and hot but worth it.

Universal Studio was next on the agenda and this is out on Sentosa Island which you have to take the 3 dollar monorail to get to it. Universal is small compared to what you would experience in Florida but we had fun. We finally convinced Dax to go on the river water ride, he wouldn’t in Florida in September and I got completely soaked including everything in my purse. It was so much fun. The Monster Rock show in the Hollywood section was excellent, great singers. I even went on a junior roller coaster which was out of my comfort zone. Dax and Darren went on this ride 5 times. My favourite was the Flyer and you get a chance to really feel like you are flying. We stayed right until closing time and hardly anyone was left at Universal so we did this one 7 times in a row and we actually could have done it another 20 times.

We ate allot of Asian dishes and Asian soups at the food stops in the MRT where all of the locals eat. It is cheap and good. Singapore was more of a recovery stop from the chaos of India and we just wanted to do allot of resting and taking it easy. Dax and I did school work by the pool and caught up because we were touring around India so much we did not get much done in the realm of school except for on the long van rides. There is plenty of things to do in Singapore but Darren had already been here once with Microsoft and I am not really interested too much in the high cost commercialized things that you can do in Singapore.